? “The lies of two Iraqi spies were central to the claim . . . that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But even before the fighting started, intelligence from highly-placed sources was available suggesting he did not”. The spies: “Curveball”, or Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, Iraqi defector and Maj Muhammed Harith, former Iraqi intelligence officer”.

? “US bill to rebuild Iraq reaches $138bn”. Kellog Brown and Root (Dick “Dick”‘s old firm) are first at the trough, followed by Agility Logistics of Kuwait and state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.

? From the land of flying pigs and unicorns, the Republican idea for getting minority votes: “hiring hundreds of paid people across the country this year to make the case in minority communities across America.” This in the wake of the CPAC shouting match about “white disenfranchisement”.

? Can you name the Republicans who can speak Spanish? It would be a “tremendous benefit” if the 2016 Republican candidate for president could, says Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. (I’ll start: JEB, Marco)

? US Supreme Court justices are considering “whether states may require people to submit proof of citizenship in order to register to vote”, as required by an AZ law passed in 2004. Their oral arguments today indicated the justices “appeared narrowly divided along ideological grounds”.

? Examples of things gone very wrong in education: “a teacher at a ‘D’-rated [charter] school . . . sees a miraculous jump in test scores and gets a bonus”; 40% of the evaluation of an “award-winning” elementary school teacher was based on “test scores of students she never taught.”

? Cheating in the El Paso school district--by an administrator, who deliberately changed data “to meet federal accountability measures.” And this isn’t the first time: a former “El Paso school superintendent . . . is in federal prison” for the same thing.

? “Jose Alfredo Martinez de Hoz, economy minister during . . . Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ . . . and architect of some of the . . . most infamous economic experiments” is dead. He was under house arrest pending investigation for kidnapping. David Rockefeller thought him–“brilliant, solid and absolutely realistic”–and gave him Chase Bank loans.